


November 10, 1974

by cherryvanilla



Series: Defining Moments Challenge [5]
Category: Contact (1997)
Genre: Character Study, Defining Moments Vignette Challenge, Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-07
Updated: 2011-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-22 07:51:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryvanilla/pseuds/cherryvanilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It happened so fast; like a comet shooting across the sky." Defining Moments Challenge. Written July 2002.</p>
            </blockquote>





	November 10, 1974

It happened so fast; like a comet shooting across the sky.

Fear, incredible fear as she walked down the stairs, calling for her father. The sight of the popcorn, splayed out along the floor. It was like a jumble of images that weren't piecing together. She called his name, leaned over him, desperate. Open your eyes, she thought, just open your eyes.

Running up the stairs, she felt detached from her body, her legs moving on their own accord. The medicine, she screamed silently, the medicine. Running back down, pills in hand -- her fingers fumbling with the cap. Twist off, dammit, twist off.

She shook him, hoping he'd wake up. The pill was lying in her palm. What could she do? Put it in his mouth, hoping it would bring him out of the shock? She didn't know. She opened his mouth, slipped the pill inside, hoping it would go down. Go down, she cried, go down.

Five minutes later. Nothing happening. She screamed for her father, screamed that they were missing the shower and the popcorn was getting cold.

She dialed emergency. She waited and held his hand, cold, so cold, as they said they'd be right there. A whisk of people; running into the house, kneeling over her father, opening his shirt and pumping his chest. Men; towering over her, trying to pull her away from the scene as she kicked and screamed and cried for her father. Yelled for the medicine, that she gave him the medicine. Voices; trying to calm her, soothing, but she couldn't hear them; all she could hear was her heart pounding and the sound of her sobs.

The people move away, no longer bunching around her dad. She wipes at her eyes, looked at his figure on the floor expectedly, waiting for him to sit up and smile at her. Hey, Sparks. Where was her 'hey, Sparks?'

"Eleanor. Your father had a heart condition. It's stopped already, Eleanor. Before we go here. There's nothing we can do. I'm so sorry."

She stares at him, blankly. The words don't commute. She's empty, so empty.

"Where's my dad?" She whispers.

"He's.."

She looks over. He's being wheeled away, a sheet covering his face. They're taking her daddy away.

"We have to watch the meteor shower. He made popcorn."

A woman is at her side now, stroking her hair. "Sweetie, you can't."

The world turns dark. Her vision becomes blurred. And she cries into the woman's shirt. Cries so much. Mommy. Daddy.

Days later, she's sitting outside, her eyes vacant, her mind blank as the wind blows just as it did the other night. She looks dully at the priest who's just left her house. He stops in front of her. He's there to give her piece of mind. He's there to tell her she has to accept this, that there was nothing she could do. Her father was taken, and there was nothing she could do.

"..Sometimes we just have to accept it, as God's will," he finishes. She looks at him, and feels something she didn't even know she could. Contempt. At this priest, and at a God she's now sure does not exist.

"I should have kept some medicine in the downstairs bathroom. Then I could have gotten to it sooner," she spits out the words and turns her back on him, moving like a zombie past all of the people in her house. She sits at her desk and the tears fall. She turns on her radio transmitter, and begins to call for him, just as she has since this happened.

"CQ- CQ this is W-9-GFO, do you copy? Dad, this is Ellie, come back? This is Eleanor Arroway, transmitting on 14.2 megahertz. Dad â€¦ are you there? Come back."

She continues on automatic, she doesn't stop. He's out there; she knows he is. And she'll spend the rest of her life proving she isn't alone.


End file.
